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A new poll from Howey Politics and DePauw University shows Richard Mourdock leading Dick Lugar by 10 points in the Indiana Republican Senate primary. Among GOP primary voters, 48 percent said they would vote for Mourdock, the state treasurer, while 38 percent said they would vote for Lugar.

Mourdock is surging, and Lugar may well be headed for retirement on May 8. Lugar’s record of supporting anti-gun legislation has hurt him. At a time where the Republican base is fired up against Barack Obama, Lugar’s status as “Obama’s favorite Republican” and his support for Obama’s nominees to the Supreme Court has hurt him badly. Lugar’s childish refusal to endorse the party’s chosen nominee has not helped, either.

Lugar knows he can’t defend his record to a Republican primary electorate, so he has been throwing mud for months. All indications are that the Lugar campaign is in an all-out panic.

Mourdock is a proven 60% general election winner, so the Democrats’ hopes of picking up this seat are little more than fantasy – especially with a candidate who had the majority of voters choose someone else in his Congressional district in 2010, barely winning with a plurality.